Strange Magic
by TheFreakWithTheWings
Summary: The problem wasn't that Darcy's father was a wizard; it's that her mother wasn't. Formerly known as To Telling Only Lies
1. Introducing Darcy

AN: I'm trying out a different style of writing here. Let me know what you think!

EDIT 3/30: Turns out there's more to this story. Yay!

Disclaimer: I'm not the genius behind Marvel, nor the master behind the Dresden Files.

The problem wasn't that Darcy's father was a wizard; it's that her mother wasn't.

Like most kids, Darcy had been raised on stories of magic and monsters. However, the heroes in her bedtime stories weren't handsome princes or cunning princesses; they were her dad and his fellow Wardens.

Darcy had grown up knowing that her dad had the best job in the world: he was the wizard police, and she wanted to be just like him when she grew up.

Puberty slunk in, but brought no sign of anything magical about Darcy Lewis, and so her dad packed up and left.

Years later, she would look back and realize that he had done what he thought best for their family, but now she was fourteen and for the first time ever her dad wasn't there to tell her about how Commander Luccio (her hero) had led them to victory against the vampiric hordes.

So Darcy put the magic and monsters away, drowning them out with music and technology.

(She didn't miss the relief that loosened her mother's shoulders when he left.)

The next time she sees him, he needs her because magic doesn't run through her veins. Technology and magic don't mix, although the Wardens are worried because someone - a Dr. Jane Foster - has managed to track down the entrance of a Way leading to Asgard - using science.

Darcy never learned much about the far-off Asgardians, preferring to focus on the more present danger of the Red Court vampires. Her Taser may not have been able to kill one of those monsters, but even they dropped when hit with that much electricity, and then it was just a simple matter of cutting open their stomach pouches. Darcy had only done so once, and she never wanted to do so again. Her knitting needles would never be the same.

Darcy was still too much her father's daughter to ever be comfortable with science, so she nearly says no. But she's still her father's daughter, even after he left, and so she says yes.

And anyways, she needs those science credits to graduate. Really, he's doing her a favor.

Jane Foster is made up of science and stars.

People have sometimes said that Darcy has her head in the clouds, but Jane doesn't even see the clouds because her eyes are always seeking out the secrets of the universe from among the stars.

In return, Darcy keeps her feet on the ground and makes sure that Jane can keep chasing after her stars with a steady supply of Pop Tarts and coffee.

Darcy is needed (and it feels great).

The hot hobo that staggered out from the Way, shouting for a hammer was a shock, although maybe tasing him was a little bit of an overreaction.

Finding out that the hot hobo was actually the Norse god Thor was even more of a shock.

When the Jackbooted Thugs showed up to steal Jane's science Darcy grumbled about her lost ipod, but her heart wasn't in it.

She would have to report Thor's appearance to the proper authorities, and, no matter how shiny SHIELD's badges were, they weren't the real authorities. The White Council needed to know.

And yet, Darcy felt reluctant to betray Jane.

Sometimes Darcy wonders if Erik was like her, the mortal child of a wizard, abandoned for the crime of not having magic, what with the way he knew about the ancient myths.

Then she remembers that he chose to study the stars and is almost sure of it.

In the end, it didn't matter.

Thor's insane brother almost completely destroyed the town before she could work up the nerve to call in the Wardens, and then he was gone.

Two days later, while Jane was still hoping that Thor would come back for her, Darcy made the call.

A younger, Hispanic Warden who introduced himself as Carlos Ramirez showed up to inspect the Bifrost, jotted down a few notes - in crayon, strangely enough - and left a few hours later.

Darcy didn't tell Jane.

Instead, she went out into the desert, walking until the RV is the size of a shoebox, and sank to her knees, fisting her hands in the dry sand.

A wave of anger at Thor, her father, her circumstances, and life in general, swept over her. She choked on the sobs that try to claw their way out of her throat and forced herself to relax before she got swept under.

She let go of the sand, hissing when her palms scraped against something sharp and jagged.

What had once been two fistfuls of sand had somehow melted into glass.

Darcy sat back on her heels, stunned for what felt like the millionth time in a week.

She had done the impossible; she had done magic.

AN: Carlos' crayon is from a great fic on ao3 called Love Is All You Need To Destroy Your Enemies, by shadydave. It has the best Carlos characterization that I've ever read. The idea doesn't belong to me.


	2. Darcy Tells All

**A/N: Thanks to all of you lovely readers who reviewed and/or favorited. I really appreciate it.**

The first thing Darcy did when she got back in the RV was call her mother.

No. That's a lie.

The first thing she did was stare at the door handle, anxiety and fear curdling together in her stomach.

One of the things she had learned about magic told her that a person developed magic during puberty; another was that magic didn't get on well with technology.

Why could she use magic now, and not back when she had been desperate for it?

Could she even go into the RV without causing all of the machines to break down? Could she even work with Jane anymore?

It was only after she entered the RV that she called her mother. Really, though, she was waiting for the call to fail, for her phone to die in a fizzle of sparks.

Instead, it connected.

"Hey Darcy, what's up?" her mother asked.

A sob was ripped from her chest.

"Oh, Darcy, sweetie, what's wrong?" she asked.

"Mama," Darcy choked out. "Mama, I did magic."

"Honey, you know that's impossible." her mother said.

"I melted sand into glass with my bare hands Mom, I'm pretty sure it was magic." she exclaimed, practically shouting.

Kathleen Lewis had never liked magic, something her own mother had passed down to her. It was one of the reasons that she had been so happy when Donald Morgan had left them; the other reason was because he had kept basically everything about himself a secret, only revealing his true nature after she had learned that she was pregnant.

"Darcy," she heard from behind her. "What are you talking about?"

Shit. She hadn't even bothered to check if she was alone or not. SHIELD had probably bugged the place too, and now everyone would know about her.

"Just a family crisis, Jane, don't worry about it." she replied, shoulders tense as she hung up on her mother, ignoring the frantic questions coming from her phone. Her phone screen lit up with an incoming call, but Darcy turned her phone off, determined to ignore her mother for a little while longer. Why had she even called her mother in the first place? How could she have forgotten her mother's distaste for anything magical?

"You know," Jane said. "Just because I spend almost all of my time in the lab doesn't mean that I'm completely oblivious to what's going on around me."

Darcy snorted. "Jane, an atomic bomb could go off and you wouldn't even notice until the coffee was all gone."

She turned around and flopped into a chair with a sigh, dropping her phone onto the table and staring up at the ceiling. Jane came and sat in the chair next to her.

"I'm not that bad." she protested.

Darcy lifted her head up and raised her eyebrows. "Jane. Yes, you are."

"Okay, so maybe I can get distracted by science from time to time, but if you need me for any reason, all you have to do is ask." Jane said.

Darcy felt like the worst sort of person. Here she was, stabbing Jane in the back while the other woman was being all supportive. She pulled her glasses off and rubbed at her eyes, sighing while she debated with herself.

Who was she more loyal to, the father who had abandoned her eight years ago, or Jane, her boss, but also the older sister she had never had?

"Let's go outside," Darcy said. "There's something I need to show you."

Jane stared at Darcy, her brow furrowed for one endless moment, as if her intern was a particularly surprising equation. "Alright." she finally said.

Time seemed to crawl by, slower than molasses, while Darcy led Jane back out to the spot where she had done magic. If the other woman said anything, Darcy didn't hear because of the ringing in her ears. Her mouth was drier than the desert around them.

"Here," Darcy said as she stooped down and gently picked up one of the pieces of glass, carefully avoiding the sharp edges as she handed it to Jane. "Careful, it's sharp."

Jane stared down at the glass cradled in her hands. "What is it?"

"It's part of what I need to talk to you about." Darcy said, staring out into the night rather than meeting Jane's curious gaze. "I'll understand if you hate me, if you kick me out, but please hear me out first."

"I could never hate you Darcy, even if you do get on my nerves sometimes, I promise." Jane said.

Darcy smiled wryly. "Just let me say everything before you start yelling at me, okay?"

"Okay."

Darcy took a deep breathe in an attempt to calm her nerves before she began speaking and slowly let it out. "I've been keeping an eye on you as a favor to my dad. He's a member of a group called the White Council, which governs all of the wizards in the world. Right now they're at war with one of the vampire Courts, although I'm not sure which one. You're equipment was picking up some sort of residue, or something, from the opening of portals, and my dad was worried that the vampires would take advantage of that. Also, magic usually doesn't work with technology, which is why they sent me, because I didn't have magic, and it freaked them out a little. So yeah. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier."

"Is this some sort of joke?" Jane asked incredulously. "Vampires and wizards? What the hell Darcy? And what does this glass have to do with anything?"

Of course Jane didn't believe her, Darcy realized. A few days with a god wasn't enough to discredit a lifetime of science. Besides, they had explained him away as an alien, which fit within the bounds of science.

"Thor, an alien-god, got brought back to life by his magical flying hammer of thunder and lightning. Are vampires and wizards really that much of a stretch?" Darcy pointed out. "As for the glass, well, I made it."

Jane narrowed her eyes. "Show me," she demanded. "And maybe I'll believe you."

Darcy nodded then picked up a handful of sand and squeezed it between her fingers, trying to pull up her earlier anger. Instead of anger, though, she found fear. Fear of Jane's hatred, of her father's anger, of her mother's disbelief, of failure.

Magic was fueled by emotion, and fear was just another emotion.

Darcy closed her eyes and forced herself to channel the icy tendrils of fear down her arms, through her hands, and into the sand. Or, at least, that's what it was supposed to do; the magic seemed to reach the tips of her fingers, and then it froze, not moving any farther. It began to pool in her fingers, spreading towards her hands. Darcy opened her eyes, hoping to see something- anything- happening to the sand.

"What the hell!" she exclaimed, staring at her hands in shock.

They were turning blue.

**A/N: ****I feel like my writing style for this piece sort of slid back into my usual style. Whoops. Sorry if this is off-putting to anyone.**

**Thanks to Tonnocal over on ao3 for the idea of Morgan being Darcy's dad.**

**So how are you guys feeling about Loki? Do you wanna see Evil!Loki, Good!Loki, or No Fucks Given!Loki?**

**On a side note, have any of you guys ever experienced labyrinthitis? I am currently dealing with it, and it is making life very interesting. Also dizzy.**


	3. Consequences

A/N: This chapter is mostly filler, but it also sets up the confrontation in the next chapter. Also, there is an unsubtle hint as to who Darcy's magical ancestor is.

"That wasn't what I was expecting," Jane said. "How did you do that?"

Darcy looked up at her friend. "Uh, magic. It's a little difficult to control at first. Sorry."

Jane's eyes widened. "Darcy, your eyes are red, and you have weird ridges on your face."

"Really?" Darcy dropped the sand and reached up to touch her face. Sure enough, ridges of hardened flesh had been raised on her skin. It felt strange, touching them. She knew that they were there, but it was an unfamiliar sensation, like finding a new mole, but on a larger scale. "Cool. Weird, but cool."

Jane touched one the ridges then yanked her hand back quickly. "Shit, that's really cold."

Jane stuffed her fingers into her armpits before Darcy could get a glimpse of them, but Darcy still felt bad for unintentionally hurting her.

"Sorry, sorry, hang on a sec," she said, closing her eyes and concentrating.

The fear that she had used to fuel her magic was still there, a cold lump in her stomach, so Darcy focused on warmer emotions: friendship, love, and compassion, and the people she associated them with. She smothered the fear with those feelings until it was almost completely gone.

A warm sensation raced through her bloodstream, starting at her heart and moving out with every rapid heartbeat. It didn't hurt; it tingled, like the feeling of holding one's hands in front of a fire on a chilly day. It was soothing, and when it was finished Darcy felt comfortable in her own skin again.

"Well, I believe you about the magic now," Jane quipped.

Darcy's shoulders slumped. At least one person believed her tonight, even if she had required proof and would probably have a half dozen hypotheses on how it worked by morning. Although why Jane - who was deeply rooted in science- would believe that Darcy was capable of wielding magic, but her mother- who had been raised knowing about magic yet hated it- didn't was beyond her. Maybe her mother was in denial.

"C'mon." Jane held out her hand and helped Darcy to her feet, casually chucking aside the glass Darcy had created earlier with the other hand. "Let's go back to the RV, where you can explain everything you know about magic to me."

"I thought you were mad at me," Darcy said.

"Well, I was," Jane replied. "But the magic and its possibilities are so fascinating. I'll go back to being mad when the novelty has worn off."

"As long as we save the science until tomorrow, I'm game. Or maybe the next day," Darcy mumbled as the world tipped sideways beneath her feet, tiredness sweeping over her like a wave. "I'm exhausted."

"Darcy!" Jane exclaimed as she grabbed Darcy's arm to keep her from tipping over. "Why didn't you tell me you were so tired?"

"I wasn't until just now," Darcy replied, trying to keep herself upright. She felt like she had just pushed herself through an all-nighter without any caffeine after having run a marathon. "It must have been the magic I used. Dad always said that magic was fueled by emotions. I just didn't think he meant it so literally."

Darcy could feel her eyelids sagging, pulled down by her crushing need for sleep.

Jane began tugging her back to the RV, muttering something, but Darcy was having difficulty focusing on her words. Probably something about the science of magic. Or the magic of science. Whatever it was, she was too tired to care.

All of her energy was focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not losing her footing on the desert sand. If she fell now, Darcy knew that she would fall asleep for at least a week, and Jane wasn't strong enough to drag her the rest of the way.

Finally, _finally_, they made it back. Darcy was so relieved that if she hadn't been about to fall asleep on her feet she might have cried.

Then she saw who was waiting for them on the front step.

"You have no right to be here," Jane began, fury shaking her small frame.

Agent Coulson interrupted her. "Dr. Foster, I'm here to speak to Miss Lewis about her connections to-"

"Stop," Darcy said. "Just. Stop. I am too tired for this bullshit. Come back in the morning. I might talk to you then."

He frowned. "Miss Lewis I really must insist-"

"No. Leave. Go home. We're done here," Darcy stared at him, her eyes dead. Agent Coulson chose not to argue with someone so obviously about to collapse from fatigue.

"Goodnight Miss Lewis, Dr. Foster." He nodded at them before getting into his car and driving away, the headlights the only illumination in the night.

In the morning Darcy would probably regret staring down a SHIELD agent, but for now she was too tired to think clearly.

The world began to flash by as her brain grew fuzzier with exhaustion.

One moment they were on the steps of the RV, Jane's arm providing support. The next they were in the kitchen. The beanbag chair slouched on the floor. The shelf sagged under the piles of astronomy books. The bed, the beautiful bed.

Jane's voice, murmuring a goodnight.

Darkness.


	4. Darcy's Dad

Darcy's dad was sitting on the bed next to her when she woke up.

His face crinkled into a smile when he saw she was awake. "Hey Darcy-girl."

Darcy squinted up at him, her mind too fuzzy from too much sleep to fully process what was going on. "Dad? Why're you here?" she mumbled, not quite believing her eyes.

"Your mother called. She was very concerned because you said something about doing magic," her dad said.

Darcy waited for the disapproval to come.

"I know you were disappointed when you never got any magic as a teenager, but there's no need to be making up stories now," he lectured.

Darcy tried not to roll her eyes, she really did. "I turned sand into glass with my bare hands and then turned myself blue. Last time I checked, normal people couldn't do that."

Her dad narrowed his eyes. "Explain."

Darcy sighed and seriously considered pulling her blanket over her head and hiding from the conversation. Talking about feelings was hard. She knew he would be upset and disappointed if he learned that she'd told Jane about magic, so she was definitely going to leave that part out of her story. Darcy took a deep breath and began.

"Jane is my friend now, Dad, and I was really angry about having to spy on her for you," she said haltingly.

Her dad rubbed a hand over his face. "I knew you wouldn't be ready for this sort of mission. I knew I shouldn't have asked you."

"Dad," she snapped. Darcy could feel her hurt and anger resurfacing. "Let me finish."

He fell silent.

"As I was _saying_, I got mad, so I went for a walk in the desert to release my anger into the Force or whatever."

He frowned. "Was that a Star Trek reference?"

"Star Wars. Anyways, the sand turned to glass, and then I got a little freaked because, hello, I shouldn't be able to do magic, and then I turned blue. After a little while I got myself under control, but I was still a little freaked out so I called mom. Only, I think the shady government agency put bugs in the RV because one of their creepy guys in suits showed up before I crashed," Darcy explained, waving her hands as she spoke.

"Which government agency sent an agent to speak with you?" her dad asked, still frowning.

"Shield. They're the ones who stole Jane's research too, although they gave it back once Thor asked nicely," Darcy said.

His expression darkened even further. "They seek to open Ways themselves, and will likely destroy themselves with their foolishness. Don't worry, Darcy-girl," he said, his voice softening as he rested a hand on her shoulder. "I will speak to this agent of Shield for you."

Darcy smiled, some of the tension rolling off of her shoulders. "Thanks, Dad."

"Of course," he said, as if scaring off a government agency that could make people disappear was a simple thing. It probably was, for him, considering he wasn't just any old wizard. "Now, on the subject of your magic, it is strange that it would manifest itself at this time. Would you allow me to Look at you?"

Darcy could hear the capital letter on the word 'look' and realized that her dad wanted to use the Sight, to see everything that she was and could be, in order to figure out what was going on with her magic. It would be very invasive, and so she hesitated, loath to let him invade her privacy, especially after so many years apart. Except, she knew her dad wouldn't use whatever he Saw against her, that he just wanted to help, and she really wanted to know why she could suddenly use magic after all this time without it.

She swallowed tightly, her throat constricted by nerves, and clenched her hands around her blanket. Then she nodded, granting him permission to Look at her.

Her dad's forehead creased with wrinkles as he closed his eyes. There was something off about them when he opened them again, a certain shine that hadn't been there before.

He stared at her for a tense moment, unblinking. Darcy was careful not to meet his eyes directly when he Looked at her - he had taught her the dangers of a soulgaze a long time ago but she didn't know if it was still possible when he was using the Sight.

As quickly as it had appeared, the shine around his eyes vanished.

"Oh, Darcy-girl," he said in a soft tone before he did something shocking: he hugged her. Her dad had never been much for showing physical affection, so whatever he had Seen must have been bad.

"What's the verdict, Doc?" Darcy asked. "Is it terminal?"

Her dad ignored her lame attempt at a joke, tightening his hold on her for a second before letting go. "I left because I did not want any Red Court vampires to track down you and your mother, because of the war, not because you didn't have magic. You are my daughter and your safety is important to me. I love you no matter what."

Darcy sniffled. She couldn't help it. Her dad was rarely so frank about his feelings around her. "Thanks Dad. Love you too."

He smiled tightly then cleared his throat. "Yes, good. Now, what do you know about how your mother and I met?"

"Not much," Darcy admitted. "She never wanted to talk about it."

"There was a spell on her, a bloodline based curse, and because those can be quite dangerous, I was tasked with investigating it. No matter how hard I looked, I could determine neither the purpose nor the caster. You were born with the same spell on you," he said.

"What," Darcy said, hardly able to believe her ears. "Do you mean to tell me that I've been under a curse my whole life, and you never _told me_?"

Her dad frowned, as if he couldn't see why she was angry. "It wasn't doing you any harm, and your mother asked me not to tell you about it."

A book suddenly fell off the headboard, and the empty glass began to rattle.

Darcy slowly pulled in a lungful of air, trying to remain calm so that her magic didn't cause any accidents, and the glass stopped shaking. "Why are you telling me about it now, then?"

"It's gone," he said. "It is my belief that the curse was what kept you from accessing your magic initially, although the reason behind it is still unclear."

Darcy was stunned. Someone had put a curse on her mom, a curse that had been designed specifically to suppress magic, a curse that would be passed on through their family. She didn't know what to feel other than upset.

Before she could say anything, though, Jane stuck her head into the tiny room. "Sorry to interrupt, but Agent Coulson is here and he wants to talk to you, Darcy."

She could practically see the indignant fury radiating off of Jane and was willing to bet that Jane had already chucked something at the agent.

Her dad pushed himself off the bed. He was almost tall enough to hit his head on the ceiling.

"I shall deal with this agent, Doctor Foster," he growled.

Jane blinked, then smirked. "Oh, okay. You do that."

He stalked out of the tiny room, and Darcy scrambled off the bed to follow him. She could sort out her feelings later; she did _not_ want to miss her dad's confrontation with Agent Coulson.

0o0o0

A/N: Well, it's been awhile. Sorry about that. Really really sorry. The next update will not take that long, although updates will probably be slow because I'm rereading the Dresden Files and am currently only on Fool Moon. But I didn't completely ignore this fic this past year - the plot is now 110 times better and has a lot more DF characters in it. The old plot was really horrible guys. Really really horrible.


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